Morgan Stanley punters get refund over computer cock-up

Morgan Stanley has apologised after 15,000 customers had extra interest added to their accounts as a result of a botched computer migration.

The company recently moved its core technology platform off Experian and onto its inhouse Discover system. A migration problem meant 15,000 customers had extra interest added to their credit card accounts.

A percentage of customers receiving their August statements will see the error, although online statements and September's statement will have the correct figure. Customers who got in touch before paying their bill were told to ignore the overcharge. Those who overpaid will have their accounts credited or can ask for a cheque to be sent out if they prefer.

Morgan Stanley sent us the following statement:

In Morgan Stanley's August monthly statement mail-out, a very small proportion of statements showed incorrect interest charges. This was due to a change over of IT systems which erroneously added interest to those cardholders' accounts.

Morgan Stanley promptly recognised and analysed this error and prevented the issue from affecting any further customers. For the small number of customers that were affected, Morgan Stanley proactively refunded all interest charges. Cardholders will see the refund now on their online statement or in their next paper statement.

All cardholders who contacted the customer service centre prior to receiving the refund were instructed to disregard the interest charges when making their monthly payment. At no point were any customers out of pocket.

For the customers who paid back in full before the issue had been identified, a refund was posted immediately to the cardholders account as part of the work we did to rectify the problem. This includes customers who paid by cheque. If a customer preferred not to have the credit on their account, they could request a cheque to be sent to them.

For customers who paid by direct debit, they will see their direct debit reduced accordingly when it posts to their bank account. Once again, they will not be out of pocket at any point.